So my question is what races and characteristics would be good in an RTS. Elves Vs Dwarves Vs Humans? No humans at all, dragons vs unicorns. Flamingo's vs hippos? (a student of mine once suggested that @ hcc).

But please don't limit it to the physical descriptions, but also the characteristics. Terrans had mechanical things, guns, tanks, metal buildings. The Protoss are spell casters, mystic swords, lightning, shields. the Zerg are biological, living tissue, genetic, claws, scales and acid.

I'd like some fresh perspectives and ideas. Thanks.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

I think it's worth trying to give each race a consistent type of visual appeal aimed at a specific audience segment. For example, One could be cutesy, with fluffy (killer) bunnies and sheep, and maybe the buildings could involve cartoony flowers somehow. A different one could be female pin-up themed, with busty amazons or catgirls in bikinis. A third could have male pin-up equivalents of bishounen, probably accessorized with horses, roses, capes, and sparkles. A fourth could be creepy with skeletons, spiders, green poisonous gasses, and giant mosquitoes. And a fifth could be majestic - gryphons and dragons and warriors in elaborate armor.

Edited by sunandshadow, 07 January 2013 - 06:48 PM.

Phone game idea available free to someone who will develop it (Alphadoku game - the only existing phone game of this type is both for windows phone only and awful. PM for details.)

I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.

Made one once where the teams were "up-go'ers" "down-go'ers" and "stay-putters". It was set in a tower with a number of narrow stair-cases, with some people at the top of the tower going toward the bottom, the bottom of the tower going toward the top, and a third team trying to just muck up the works. Stay-putters won if the total amount of resources in the tower is greater than the resources that escaped the tower through the top or bottom, with the up-go'ers or down-go'ers winning if the top or bottom had the most, respectively. The teams were mostly differentiated around their win conditions. Stay-putters can lay down tar to slow stuff down or lead the other teams into eachother, up-go'ers could construct rigging to lift stuff more efficiently, down-go'ers could roll rocks down stairs to squash up-go'ers. My version was horrendously unbalanced, but that doesn't mean that yours has to be.

It was simple, but lent itself to a lot of art reuse and the concept was silly enough to enable a lot of freedom without feeling dumb doing it.

Insectoids (insects, arachnids, etc.). Comes with a pretty distinct visual look, and plenty of potential units. Units would be able to regenerate or operate without limbs, and the majority of units would be relatively cheap but might have limited uses or require larger groups to really be effective.

Zerts - Ancient tall spiritual warriors who battle using the spirits of wind and thunder. Initially, they start off as normal warriors and can only call on the powerful of the spirits after years of spiritual training. Thus, their units have long building time and yet expensive. With wind, they kill their enemies swiftly and yet quietly. With thunder, they destroy numerous targets in one go. They can cast rituals to call upon wind or thunder to boost their power. When near a church, they can activate Save's Thunder or Spectre's Wind which greatly boosts their combat ability. It lasts for 1 minute. When injured in battle, they can cast the skill meditate to restore their health quickly but however needs to be uninterrupted for 2 minute. Able to fight effectively though outnumbered.

-or however best to translate the ideals of this movement to RTS gameplay

Nice call on the characteristics. That would provide a very different game play style, and also provide good political differences. I like this. I like the idea of the capitalist groups providing loans, but if you default, your building or troop set are beamed off the planet, and no longer yours, right in the middle of battle. You can make a quick squad or two, but if you don't secure credits fast, they all dissapear, and you are left with no/low funding.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

I think it's worth trying to give each race a consistent type of visual appeal aimed at a specific audience segment. For example, One could be cutesy, with fluffy (killer) bunnies and sheep, and maybe the buildings could involve cartoony flowers somehow. A different one could be female pin-up themed, with busty amazons or catgirls in bikinis. A third could have male pin-up equivalents of bishounen, probably accessorized with horses, roses, capes, and sparkles. A fourth could be creepy with skeletons, spiders, green poisonous gasses, and giant mosquitoes. And a fifth could be majestic - gryphons and dragons and warriors in elaborate armor.

This is an odd post to come across, but exactly the type of response I was hoping for. What if the graphics were different as well for the different sides you were on. For instance, if you play the fluffy bunny side, they think that the military side is a bunch of scary demons, they look like skeletons. But they also have "RAMbo" of the Sheep clan, and the Coo Coo Hatter of the Chicken clan banding to fight back, and claim areas. Then the human military doesn't see "bunnies" they see Rabid Rabbits of unusual size! (I don't think the exist, AAHHHH!)

I don't see my self as using this, but its an interesting idea. Imagine having two games, completely different server, and on one server, everyone thinks its starcraft, and on the other server, everyone thinks its bunnies fighting for carrots, a bunch of little kids playing, but behind the scenes, the games are the same, but the look and feel is completely different between the servers, with no clear connection.

I would also include that I like the idea from a different perspective. Like in the zerg, the HUD looks like flesh, and the Terran, it looks like metal/computer. I like this appeal from the stand point, that the HUD still operates the same in starcraft for each race. But what if a more biological based force had a more organic flow to the way your control them. for instance, with one race, you just point and click, giving commands, but perhaps with a league of robots, who are always centrally controlled, you can control every bit of there movement. down to taking over a machine and driving it with arrow keys, and mouse firing tactics.

Edited by hpdvs2, 07 January 2013 - 10:24 PM.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

Made one once where the teams were "up-go'ers" "down-go'ers" and "stay-putters". It was set in a tower with a number of narrow stair-cases, with some people at the top of the tower going toward the bottom, the bottom of the tower going toward the top, and a third team trying to just muck up the works. Stay-putters won if the total amount of resources in the tower is greater than the resources that escaped the tower through the top or bottom, with the up-go'ers or down-go'ers winning if the top or bottom had the most, respectively. The teams were mostly differentiated around their win conditions. Stay-putters can lay down tar to slow stuff down or lead the other teams into eachother, up-go'ers could construct rigging to lift stuff more efficiently, down-go'ers could roll rocks down stairs to squash up-go'ers. My version was horrendously unbalanced, but that doesn't mean that yours has to be.

It was simple, but lent itself to a lot of art reuse and the concept was silly enough to enable a lot of freedom without feeling dumb doing it.

it sounds interesting, but I can't picture it. Is there a video of this somewhere?

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

Insectoids (insects, arachnids, etc.). Comes with a pretty distinct visual look, and plenty of potential units. Units would be able to regenerate or operate without limbs, and the majority of units would be relatively cheap but might have limited uses or require larger groups to really be effective.

good addition. Sort of like how zerglings are really cheap, but only effective in numbers. Fast too.

I like the addition of (or loss of) lost arms/legs, but still able to go on, potentially even grow new ones.

Then, it could separate farther, because you wouldn't control them in single units, but more set a target area, and they act as a steady stream of pestilence that adds up quickly. Other specialties like Termites could take down buildings. and Roaches hide, watching things, and are really hard to kill even if you spot them.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

Zerts - Ancient tall spiritual warriors who battle using the spirits of wind and thunder. Initially, they start off as normal warriors and can only call on the powerful of the spirits after years of spiritual training. Thus, their units have long building time and yet expensive. With wind, they kill their enemies swiftly and yet quietly. With thunder, they destroy numerous targets in one go. They can cast rituals to call upon wind or thunder to boost their power. When near a church, they can activate Save's Thunder or Spectre's Wind which greatly boosts their combat ability. It lasts for 1 minute. When injured in battle, they can cast the skill meditate to restore their health quickly but however needs to be uninterrupted for 2 minute. Able to fight effectively though outnumbered.

interesting concept of bringing meditation into this. The Protoss are all majestic and magic, but I don't recall anything related to meditation on their side. Boosts based on what they are close to. This also lends itself to keeping your powerful characters alive longer, because they would improve over time. just like a units accuracy might improve over time.

This made me think of an interesting concept, when first facing some type of enemy, or armor, your troops don't know the weak points in their defenses, and so target anything. (maybe these things don't have heads) But as they learn, and start to become effective, the information of how to beat them spreads. sort of like white blood cells becoming more effective at targeting disease. And of course, the longer a unit has survived battle against another race, the more they begin to instinctively know where to shoot.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

For example, one may be good at smell and you may be able to see particles coming from an area where there are enemies that have a certain smell.

Another one may be able to see infrared or ultraviolet light. A certain frequency may hint at a certain resource, they may be able to to see enemies in darkness, or the glow of the weapons may allow them to quickly identify targets in an ambush. They might even have electromagnetic sensors (like sharks) that would alert them to enemy presence and technology.

This made me think of an interesting concept, when first facing some type of enemy, or armor, your troops don't know the weak points in their defenses, and so target anything. (maybe these things don't have heads) But as they learn, and start to become effective, the information of how to beat them spreads. sort of like white blood cells becoming more effective at targeting disease. And of course, the longer a unit has survived battle against another race, the more they begin to instinctively know where to shoot.

I like this idea. This also gives the player motivation to keep his units alive for as long as possible preventing it from dying by coming up with cost effective units.

Zepher, an alien species with lacks intelligence and merely relies on instinct to battle. Thus, their units are generally weak but due to their abundance in supply, they are rather cheap and can be produced in a very short period of time. It kind of works like Zerg the way and I will be including your idea. Their specialty lies in their adaptation skill. The damage the enemy deal to them will decrease as they come in contact more often with them. But I was thinking, how can contact be defined? Based on how many kills they have, how many times they attacked the opponent, how many times they have been attacked or the duration of contact with them? They have several skills with unique ability as well. Scythe which can slightly close in on the opponent from the distance and launch a sudden attack which deals a lot of damage, Ucra, a mega creature with sharp claws able to hit multiple targets at once. It's special skill would be to jump and stun targets near it's landing area.

For example, one may be good at smell and you may be able to see particles coming from an area where there are enemies that have a certain smell.

Another one may be able to see infrared or ultraviolet light. A certain frequency may hint at a certain resource, they may be able to to see enemies in darkness, or the glow of the weapons may allow them to quickly identify targets in an ambush. They might even have electromagnetic sensors (like sharks) that would alert them to enemy presence and technology.

That's an interesting thought about smells. Being able to 'see' that on the screen as well. perhaps via a simple particle engine. Also, I've been toying with the idea of visual sound waves. I.e. you were just hit by a long range weapon. Even though you can't see it, most people can tell the direction and often distance for a large weapon fired more than once. Then you can use that to hone in on the location.

Also, I like the idea that some characters might naturally be able to see where minerals are in the map, while the other side needs a detector of some sort near by.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

Zepher, an alien species with lacks intelligence and merely relies on instinct to battle. Thus, their units are generally weak but due to their abundance in supply, they are rather cheap and can be produced in a very short period of time. It kind of works like Zerg the way and I will be including your idea. Their specialty lies in their adaptation skill.

I like natural adaptation. For instance, they see things, and they'll start to take after it. like a tactic perhaps. Oh, surrounding them is good. or figuring out ways to tear things down faster/more effectively.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

A race where you can only have a certain amount of unique "spawner" units, but where each one can almost instantly summon a temporary army? The commanders would be able to summon units instantly at a typical resource cost, but the units disappear after a while, and the units would probably not necessarily be that powerful and rely on surprise and numbers.

How about a race, probably a nature race, where almost all units can't be directly controlled? You would have buildings that periodically create units, but the units either wander around, patrol your buildings, or look for fights? That would mean you wouldn't have a lot of micro to deal with as well, but you have to focus on what buildings you create and where you place defenses.

A race where you can only have a certain amount of unique "spawner" units, but where each one can almost instantly summon a temporary army?

Sounds good, magic based. Summoners. Perhaps with really good visual range. And can summon things within sight of them. Then of course a characters that if they die, are immediately replaced by some demon. Something where you almost don't want to attack them.

Moltar - "Do you even know how to use that?"

Space Ghost - “Moltar, I have a giant brain that is able to reduce any complex machine into a simple yes or no answer."

A race where you can only have a certain amount of unique "spawner" units, but where each one can almost instantly summon a temporary army?

Sounds good, magic based. Summoners. Perhaps with really good visual range. And can summon things within sight of them. Then of course a characters that if they die, are immediately replaced by some demon. Something where you almost don't want to attack them.

That sounds a little overpowered, Typical reaction to that would be to get rid of it immediately. Maybe that can be a last resort ability for one? So if the enemy turns out to have a good sizable army, you can choose to morph the spawner into a strong unit, but it's a permanent deal.

Something probably difficult to balance with more traditional factions but also probably very fun to play with, nomads. It could be prehistoric nomads, hi-tech nomads, magical alien nomads, whatever. The fundamental thing is nomads. They have to move around constantly (because reasons).

Think about the mobile base of Command & Conquer, but with all sort of constructions.